How unusual
Metroid and Fan Games
by , August 28th, 2016 at 03:05 PM (7555 Views)
It feels like everyone's going on about No Man's Sky over the past few days; about how spectacular/ly disappointing it is, or what moderately interesting thing they found while exploring a planet, or how they got themselves killed in an embarrassing way.
However, I've been on an entirely different sci-fi binge. I'll give you a hint about what it is: Excellent games, but poor sales, and lots of purist fans who are up in arms over the last two titles. Also, it's in the title.
Metroid has seen a lot of crap from its supposed fanbase, at least if the several Metroid fans I know offline are any indication. Online is a different story, but if they can't accept even one thing about Other M of Federation Force, they can't call themselves fans because they're denying parts of the series.
I'll admit, there are exceptions to this rule. Just for one example: Shakugan no Shana Season 3. Gawd that was a disappointment.
Getting back to the Metroid fanbase though…
Fortunately, at least in my opinion, the fans who didn't like Other M seem to be grudgingly coming to accept it as part of the Metroid mythos.My nonsensical rant of the day. Unnecesary words:
Federation Force, I agree isn't good, but at least the planets are interesting, and you can butcher reams of Space Pirates. And I also accept it as part of the overall story. Despite it clearly being a kid's game.
However, I'm not on a Metroid bender because of Metroid Prime Federation Force, no sir. I'm at that party over a different Metroid game that came out a few weeks ago. Some of you may know what I'm talking about:
After years and years of development, AM2R is finally out! (and has of course been shut down by Nintendo, but the game can still be found on the net)
For those who don't know, AM2R stands for "Another Metroid 2 Remake." But it is not just another Metroid 2 remake: This game is the real deal. It's pretty much Metroid 2 with Zero-Mission graphics and a few surprises added here and there.
I've been following that project since I was in high school. It's kind of surreal to know that it's finished, to say nothing of having actually played and beaten it. Which brings me to my second topic.
It's a sad fact of life that all North American Doujin projects are doomed to be shut down. I mean, there are good reasons for this, but some of the fangames we've (see: I've) seen had a lot of potential:
The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer would have been, without question, the best fangame ever made, just on account of it being not just a good game, but a good Zelda game. The creator posted a lot of his plans for the title online: A beautiful incarnation of Hyrule, Minish Cap graphics… there was even going to be a game mechanic in which there were extra dungeons found inside people's dreams, with nightmares as the dungeon bosses. I am so sad that it's a dead project. It looked like so much fun…
Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes is another fangame, actually just a very big ROM hack of the original SNES game, that faced a similar fate. Fortunately it was 98.9% complete when the developers received their cease and desist notice, and someone managed to smuggle the game onto the Internet, where it just gets passed around through various download sites, much like another completed fangame, Pokémon Uranium, which I think was also finished recently. If you haven't checked out Crimson Echoes, as per the rules of this site, I cannot tell you where to find it, but if you don't want to spend your time looking for it, there's a playthrough on YouTube.
It. Is. Spectacular.
Square Enix is actually very possessive of their property (not that they shouldn't be, but if something's finished, and nobody's making money off of it, why not claim it instead of destroying it? That said. All traces of Final Fantasy VII: Dark Cloud seem to have vanished from the Internet. I'm a little surprised they haven't even banned Final Fantasy etc. fanfiction. Although, I haven't done any research for this post, so it's possible they've tried. And with Kingdom Hearts being the second highest producer of fan-written disasticles, on ff.net's Games section, I imagine many people would get very upset if that happened
So, my question of the day is, does anyone else know of any interesting fangames out there?
* Note: I already know someone is going to say Battle Moon Wars…
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